CFP: [Film]

full name / name of organization:

Daniel Bennett

contact email:

editors@geometer.org.uk

Geometer: Special IssueArt and Politicswww.geometer.org.ukEmail: editors_at_geometer.org.uk

Throughout January Geometer Magazine has been publishing articles on awide range of topics and disciplines, all of which negotiate thedifficult territory at the intersection of Art and Politics. These piecesseek in their different ways to understand and document the way in whichartists and writers, musicians and film-makers, respond to and documentthe different cultural and political challenges they face.

Featured Articles Include:-

Realism vs. Reality TV in the War on Terror: Artworks as Models ofInterpretation - It could be argued that the warfare of our time isdefined by its increased tendency to target the civilian; both directlyby terrorist bombs and state ordinance, and indirectly by images of thosesame attacks. At the same time camera phones and the internet haveallowed civillians to become ever more sophisticated in their creationand negotiation of these images of warfare. David Crawford examines theway in which the 'war on terror' is mediated by imagery and asks how wemight secure some critical distance from the messages it seeks tocommunicate.

The Visions of Vicki Weaver - Steve Ely is a unusual among contemporarypoets for the degree of his focus on real historical events. HisJerUSAlem sequence probes the American consciousness through thefootnotes of its decline. This extract from JerUSAlem centres on theshooting in 1992 of white separatist Vicki Weaver during the so-called 'Siege of Ruby Ridge'. A cause celebre amongst human rightsactivists, constitutionalists and the libertarian right, the incident hasbeen cited as a motivation for the Oklahoma City bombing.

An Interview with the Artist Guy Denning -Guy Denning is one of the smallgroup of contemporary artists currently making a name for themselvesthrough small independent galleries on Vyner Street and across the UK.Though often linked with â€œurban artâ€ Guy marks himself out from thatscene by channelling his artistic and political concerns through hisinterest in classical mythology and the abstractionism of Franz Kline

Neo-Neo-Classicism: the Artistic and Political Challenge of Ian HamiltonFinlay - Brian Butler considers the legacy of Ian Hamilton Finlay, whoseiconography of war provides a powerful and troubling critique ofcontemporary art theory and practice in its relationship to thepolitical.

We also include essays on Baudrillard, Che and V for Vendetta, and thepolitical nature of Sound Art plus poems by Adam Burbage, Patric Cunnaneand Uddipana Goswami.

Forthcoming Special Issues

Geometer is also currently preparing special issues on the following:David Peace - In his Red Riding Quartet (filmed and shortly to betelevised by Channel 4) Peace set about documenting 1970s Britain underthe shadow of the ripper murders with a ferocity and an originality thatsets him apart from his contemporaries. Peace's novels, whilst aspiringin some senses to act as historical documents, are not tied to the flatdrudgery of fact and proceed by way of linguistic and textualexperimentation. In later books Peace has developed both of these trends,filtering post-war Japan, the UK miner strikes and Brian Cloughs fraught1974 residence at Leeds United, all through the lens of prose that isequal parts craft and frenzy.

Short Fiction - The short story is often seen as the poor cousin of thenovel. While the novel has arguably been the main focus of literaryprestige for at least two centuries and while theories of the novel haveabounded, the short story's own history has been far more modest and hasdrawn far less ideological attention. While the great novels have soughtto capture the world between their covers, short stories have tended todwell a little out of sight of that world - in Gregor Samsa's backbedroom or Raymond Carver's blue collar neighbourhoods - and have perhapstoo often been viewed as a sideshow or apprenticeship for the main event.

But the contemporary novel is not perhaps in such rude health itself. InZadie Smith's recent article for the New York Review of Books both ofher "Two Paths for the Novel" seemed crushed by their consciousness ofthe history of the form; only able to forget themselves by more or lessconsciously playing games of make believe- As if the novel were stillrevolutionary. As if it held the key to authentic experience. As if westill believed in our own literary manifestos.

The short story, forced by its brevity to deal with the world piecemeal,is not so burdened as the novel, yet its episodic nature and its naturalincompleteness are at least as true of our experience as the novel'sappetite for omniscience and unity. One might also argue that the shortstory offers ways of writing and thinking that are barely available tothe novel - its qualities of discreteness and incompleteness are integralto the abjection of Bolano's short fiction, the helpless clarity ofRaymond Carver, and the imaginary lines of flight of Jorge Louis Borges.

Geometer calls for short fiction from authors who value the short storyon its own terms and who would explore the full breadth of itspossibilities.